AND THE CONFLICT OF INTEREST BEAT IN MEDICINE GOES ON

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By RFD Editor, Nicholas Regush

There is really no end to this; it’s been going on for so long that it’s as routine as eating breakfast. I’m referring to conflict of interest or the “appearance” of conflict of interest. Medicine and science are so rife with corruption that it’s become second nature for many participants in these fields to assume that they can do anything they want – perhaps because they have learned to believe that they can control their behavior so well that they could never be influenced by money to come to certain conclusions or champion specific theories or companies, for that matter.

The latest outrage comes to us from some excellent reporting, courtesy of the Los Angeles Times. The newspaper revealed this weekend that some of the top dogs at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have been sitting at the drug company troughs, consuming hundreds of thousands of dollars in return for “consulting.”

Get this: Some of those top dogs were financially linked to companies whose drugs were associated with the deaths of patients who were involved in NIH studies.

Oh no, but the public interest was never compromised. This was according to Dr. Ruth L. Kirschstein of the NIH who had given the green light to many of these consulting deals. We’re sure Dr. Kirschstein is a mind reader and knows exactly what transpired once the consulting began. She must also be in possession of a crystal ball.

However, we’re overjoyed to hear that Dr. Kirschstein told the LA Times that “systems can always be tightened up.” Is she living in the real world? Or is she delusional?

This entire nasty business is nothing less than a conflict of interest. It’s in the category of drug company brownnosing or worse. How can anyone living in the 21st century claim that money changing hands in this fashion will not be a conflict of interest?

But here’s the problem. This form of “consulting” goes on routinely in medicine. Only now and then do we get real details of how it plays. The major red flag here is that much of medicine and science have become stained by these types of relationships, and it is becoming next to impossible to trust those involved, who have the audacity to claim they have our well-being foremost in mind.

A SYNOPSIS OF THE LA TIMES INVESTIGATION